News, ideas and a software CEO's thoughts from 25 years in the industry.

It Really Does Pay to Listen to Good Advice

Admit it. If you’re a business owner or manager, you’ve been guilty of it. I have. And a recent Wall Street Journal article bears it out. “Workers often complain that their managers tune out their input. A new study claims to prove it.”

It seems those in positions of power tend to dismiss the advice of others when making decisions – often at their own peril. This is according to a brief article in the Managing & Careers section of the Sept. 19thJournal.

Researchers surveyed managers and their coworkers about their decision-making, and whether their coworkers’ advice was taken. They also conducted experiments in which students “simulated different levels of power and were asked to make decisions after receiving input, both bad and good, from others.”

According to the article, a study to be published in the journal “Organizational Behavior and Human Decision Processes” finds that the more power employees had, the less likely they were to take coworkers’ advice. The reason points mostly to pure, unadulterated hubris, or ego: Powerful individuals “held inflated confidence in their own judgments, which led them to discount even good advice from others.”

In half the studies, researchers found, women were more likely to take others’ advice than men. (Does this surprise anyone?)

Of course, powerful decision makers that discounted others’ advice were less accurate in their final judgments than they would have been if they had taken some of the advice offered to them, researchers found. Now, the devil may we be in the details, as in: which advice is to be taken?

Still, the general takeaway makes perfect sense: listen to your peers. Listen to your team. Consider thoughtfully. Don’t be afraid to change your mind. It’s true that many business leaders have developed strong decision-making instincts to get where they are today. But you are not infallible.